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Aunt Pythia is so very pleased to bring you more of her pearls of wisdom this nearly-believably-spring morning.

In celebration of above-freezing temperature, she’s extra cheerful and she welcomes the clouds and drizzle. After all, late March showers bring late April flowers, or something like that! Let there be blooming and cleansing!

And please, after you enjoy Aunt Pythia’s wisdom, and possibly after you clean out the front closet, please don’t forget to:

think of something to ask Aunt Pythia at the bottom of the page!

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell Aunt Pythia is talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

What the hell is goin’ on with Bitcoin? Will it survive into the future (or something else akin to it) or is it ultimately doomed???

Thanks,
Bitcoin Boogie

p.s. – I hope you realize you’ll probably have more success explaining quantum mechanics to me than Bitcoin.

Dear BB,

I promise not to try to explain Bitcoin’s underlying algorithms. But I think I can still answer your questions.

First of all, Bitcoin has been in the news lately in bad or confusing ways, first with the exchange (Mt. Gox) that went bankrupt, and second because regulators and institutional authorities are having trouble figuring out what Bitcoins are.

Even so, think of these hiccups as growing pains, according to Coinbase co-founder and former Goldman Sachs foreign exchange trader Fred Ehrsam, quoted as saying inspiring things like:

I would go to the bathroom and trade bitcoin on my smartphone and then return to my real desk to do my real job trading real currency.

If you don’t know about it, Coinbase is the “digital wallet” company that you’d probably sign up with if you wanted Bitcoins and you weren’t a huge nerd or a criminal willing to do things on the technical downlow: it makes owning Bitcoins easy, like signing up for a normal checking account.

And they are seeing lots of people joining, and they just got Overstock to accept Bitcoins as payment. So Ehrsam and people like him are pretty positive, and you never know.

Between you and me, though, I think the biggest competitor out there is Google, which has plans to allow people to share money over gmail (hat tip Suresh Naidu). Instead of paying heavy fees, you – guess what – tell Google about your checking accounts and other financial information. I see this potentially competing with banks, Apple, and of course PayPal, which sucks.

I hope that helps!

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

I am originally from a country where it’s normal to be sentimental. I am easily moved to tears and worry that this annoys others around me. Of course I can take counter-measures, for example I try to steady myself if the music is becoming emotional or before viewing some breathtakingly beautiful scenery, or, when news about a disaster or a sad film is being shown on the television I discreetly leave the room before it affects me.

I would like to be strong enough to withstand what appears to provoke no reaction in people here. Do you have any suggestion?

Too Sensitive

Dear Too,

I hear you, I’m a huge cryer too.  I blame the Irish side of my family.

What I do is I playfully prepare people I’m around, for their own comfort, and especially when they are not familiar with this side of me. So when I feel some sentimentality coming on, I’ll announce, “Hey I’m about to totally cry, because that’s what I do! Please bear with me and please ignore the tears, I’ll be OK in 10 minutes or less.” and then I’ll laugh, usually out of embarrassment.

That way they will know I realize it’s about me, not them, and that they’re not responsible to comfort me in any way. It works great, and it’s easy for me to do because I’m an extrovert. If you’re shy, it’s going to be harder, but the alternative is often that you have to explain yourself while you’re crying, which I think is worse.

Good luck!

Auntie P

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Dear Aunt Pythia.

I am but a humble traveler trying to win you over with a Firefly reference and desperately seeking your advice.

Come July, I will find myself in New York for a week. I will be in need of a place to stay and some things to do while I’m visiting your fine city.

I have been looking on airbnb for a place to stay over a hotel or a hostel but am overwhelmed by all the options. Do I stay in Brooklyn, or Lower Manhattan? Harlem or the Upper West Side. I am a young data analyst from New Zealand, what do I know of New York neighborhoods?

And then there is the sightseeing, do I go and tick off all the tourist spots or are there better things for me to do with my time? Do you know any secret spots filled with good food, great coffee and devoid of the fanny-pack wearing, obnoxiously-photographing tourist hordes?

Yours,

Seeking Habitation In New York

P.S. In New Zealand we call fanny-packs ‘bum-bags’. A fanny in NZ is something entirely different!

Dear SHINY,

I don’t know from Firefly, sorry. But I’ll answer you anyway and let readers add their opinions.

I’d suggest you stay in a different neighborhood every night or two. That way you get to see more of New York, and any annoyance is short-lived. Most of your time will be spent traveling from place to place, so pack light. Make sure at least one night is in Astoria, Queens, which is just cool and kind of the epitome of the melting pot.

The reason I suggest this is that, for me, official tourist destinations are incredibly boring and expensive for what they offer (and what they offer is bum-bag bearing tourists, which you can already see in NZ anyway). I mean, if you think you’ll regret not going to the top of the Empire State Building, then by all means go, but go 10 minutes before they open and depart quickly.

Authentic sight-seeing in New York City consists, in my opinion, of walking through neighborhoods and checking out bars and restaurants and the local cultural gathering places. Look for live music in each neighborhood you stay in, if you like that sort of thing. Or if you are into food, make a plan for a foodie tour of each neighborhood. Yum!

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

In searching online dating profile in New York City (I live nearby), I encounter a bunch of profiles of finance professionals working in, say, investment banking. After reading your blog, I have become convinced that people who work in banking

1) are morally bankrupt
1.5) are swindlers
2) are not very thoughtful in regards to the concerns of the 99%
3) are greedy
4) are arrogant … they think they are the best and the brightest, and point to the fake wealth they created to justify their salary
5) are overworked, stressed out at work, and their job is slowly killing them physically and emotionally
6) have expectations of a lavish lifestyle (nothing wrong with that, just not for me…I can’t compete, and perhaps mo money mo problems)

Am I right or am I right? Should I even bother expressing an interest in these profiles?

Just Pondering

Dear Just,

There are two questions here, which I’d like to pose separately.

First, are investment bankers are morally bankrupt swindlers who ignore lesser folk and hate their jobs?

Second, how do optimize my chances of finding love – or at least great sex with a tolerable partner – on an online dating site?

The answer to the first questions is, of course not. There are plenty of people in finance and even in investment banking that are perfectly nice and even sensitive and empathetic. On the other hand, there is some story explaining why they’re there, and it often exposes a weird side to them. On the other other hand, who here doesn’t have a weird side? On the whole I’d say, never disqualify someone on one attribute, especially if they otherwise seem great and you find yourself liking them at a basic human level.

The answer to the second question is a lot trickier, though, and is related to the first in the following sense: if you are playing the numbers – which is all you can do on these websites – then you might well decide to avoid investment bankers. After all, you only have so much time and some many free Friday nights, and you want to optimize for best chance of liking someone. All you have is demographic information like their job and age, and even if you gather more information through emails, you might first want to filter out red flags, and you might find “investment banker” to be a red flag.

As an aside, I would love someone to do a quantitative and qualitative investigation to see how people have changed their dating and mating habits through online dating. It seems like the most profound area of the internet affecting cultural practices.

My bottomline suggestion is to try to find a date through a friend of a friend. Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

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Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!